The Romance MFA is two years old! Time to take stock and assess the State of the Author. (You can read last year’s assessment here.)
Reading
Since last May, I’ve only read five books from my syllabus. That doesn’t sound like much, but except for Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, every one of the mid-twentieth century love stories was a doorstop: I tally 3,265 pages compared to the previous year’s reading of 3,500 pages for syllabus reading. I also read 52 other titles: some nonfiction like Jennifer Kloester’s biography of Georgette Heyer or Jill Lepore’s The Secret History of Wonder Woman, some unusual historicals like Genevieve Turner’s The Gaucho’s Lady or Alyssa Cole’s An Extraordinary Union, some reactionary to the syllabus readings like The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall or Pride by Ibi Zoboi.
Obviously I’m starting to drift from my original plan. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I’ve been trying to read Judith McNaught’s Whitney, My Love since October and it’s all kinds of terrible. I’ve been tweeting while I read and I’ll get a review together after I make it to the end. I should have had it in the syllabus section for Bodice Rippers, but maybe it’s better to have it out of order because it has made me realize that reading several of the Old Skool Rapemances in a row is not something I want to do. I’m not sure if I want to adjust my reading list exactly, but I’m going to change up the reading order.
For craft, I’ve been leaning heavily on the online sources; I still haven’t really read any of the secondary texts on romance or craft on my syllabus. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I started a weekly newsletter to share the sort of links I’ve been reading. I put together a Romancelandia Glossary to help me understand some of the conversations I hear.
Writing
A year ago, I thought I’d have three books out by now. Very optimistic of me! I published my first historical sports romance, Anyone But the Earl, in April. I think it’s gone well for the launch of a first book by a new author name. Of course, I’m a little disappointed to not be making Nora Roberts money yet, but you gotta start somewhere. I’m drafting the next book in the series, Head Over Wheels, and have gotten into the second half. I’ll try to be more realistic in my predictions for next year: I should have Head Over Wheels out this fall and be well into the process for the third book by May 2020.
Community
No one can work in a vacuum. Romancelandia Twitter continues to be an important outlet for me, providing social opportunities and many, many, learning opportunities. I was approved to join the RWA’s Published Author Network (PAN) community last fall, on the strength of sales of my previous pen name work. That’s given me access to the PAN forums/email loop online, which has also been interesting, and educational. I’ve been following along a bit with HBIC Nation, whose Facebook group is another supportive community of people who are mostly just a bit ahead of me on the road.
In the brick & mortar world, my writers’ group continues to be helpful and supportive, even though it is mainly speculative fiction writers. Having male writers who are game to read and thoughtfully critique romance is one of the things that reminds me the world isn’t entirely trash. I cannot recommend finding a community of fellow writers highly enough!
Readers on this blog are also part of my community — thanks for following along!
